§ XII. SUPPLYING NATURAL COMB.
We have spoken above ([page 187]) of the great value of sheets or strips of wax for assisting the bees in the building of their combs. But when, through another hive having lost its bees at an early stage, the combs themselves can be supplied them in good and clean condition, the advantage is very much greater. Such combs may be fixed in frame hives exactly in the same plan as is adopted on transferring full honeycomb ([page 224]).
Generally speaking the bee-keeper may be satisfied if he can simply insert pure white guide-comb with which to start the bees. Every bar, or if the comb is not plentiful, every other bar, should have a piece fixed to it in the following manner: Cut a piece of clean empty comb of the required size, say two inches square, not less; heat a common flat iron, with which slightly warm the bar; then melt a little bees'-wax upon it; draw the comb quickly over the heated iron, hold it down on the centre of the bar, giving a very slight movement backwards and forwards; then leave the wax to grow cold, and, if cleverly managed, the guide will be found firmly attached. Care must be taken that the pitch or inclination of the comb is the same as it is in the hives—upwards from the centre of each comb.
When a hive has been in use many years the combs become very black, and every bee that is bred in a cell leaves a film behind. It may be understood how in this way the cells become contracted, and the bees that are bred in them correspondingly reduced in size. After the lapse of, say, five years it may be necessary to begin removing the old combs. This may be done by cutting away the combs, or by substituting an empty frame for one with old black comb, gradually moving the frames towards each other. By taking two away in this manner in the spring or summer of every season, the combs in course of five years may all be reconstructed, and fresh clean ones be secured for breeding in, instead of the old black ones that otherwise would remain as long as the stock could live in the hive.
Guide-combs can also be used with glasses. These may be filled, with great regularity, by adopting the following directions, which, we believe, have never before appeared in print:—
Procure a piece of clean, new, empty, worker honeycomb, which has not had honey in it (because honey will prevent adhesion to the glass); cut it into pieces of about three-quarters of an inch square. Gently warm the exterior of the glass (this we find is best done by holding the glass horizontally for a short time over the flame of a candle); then apply one of the pieces of empty comb inside at the part warmed, taking care, in fixing it, that the pitch or inclination of the cells is upwards—in fact, place the guide-comb in the same relative position that it occupied in the hive or glass from which it was taken. There is some danger of making the glass too warm, which will cause the wax to melt and run down the side, leaving an unsightly appearance on the glass; but a little experience will enable the operator to determine the degree of warmth sufficient to make the comb adhere without any of it being melted. It is hardly necessary to state that only the very whitest combs ought to be used. A short time should be allowed before changing the position of the glass, so that it may cool sufficiently to hold the comb in its place. Six or eight pieces may thus be fixed, so that, when the glass is filled, it will present a star shape, all the combs radiating from the centre. The annexed illustration shows the appearance of a glass as worked by the bees, in which guide-combs were fixed in the manner described above. The drawing was taken from a glass of our own, filled after being thus furnished. In the Old Museum at the Royal Gardens, Kew, may be seen a Taylor's glass, presented by us, some of the combs in which are elongated on the outside to the breadth of six inches.
We believe that not only does a glass present a much handsomer appearance when thus worked—and will, on that account, most fully reward the trouble of fixing guide-comb—but that more honey is stored in the same space and in less time than if the glass be merely placed on the hive in a naked condition for the bees to follow their own course. This mode of fixing guide-comb does not solely apply to the above-shaped glass, but is equally useful for all kinds of glasses. It is introduced in connection with this glass because, from its having a flat top and no knob, the regularity is more clearly apparent.
The working of bees in the bell glasses illustrates how tractable their disposition really is if only scope is allowed for the due exercise of their natural instinct. They have no secrets in their economy, and they do not shrink from our constant observation as they daily pursue their simple policy of continuous thrift and persevering accumulation. Yet it is only owing to the labours of successive inventors that we are now enabled to watch "the very pulse of the machine" of the bee commonwealth.
"Long from the eye of man and face of day,
Involved in darkness all their customs lay,
Until a sage well versed in Nature's lore,
A genius formed all science to explore,
Hives well contrived in crystal frames disposed,
And there the busy citizens disclosed."
Murphy's Vanière.